


Girls Are Not Meant to Fight Dirty (Never Look a Day Past Thirty)

by roaroftheninth



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Gender or Sex Swap, Harvard University, M/M, Supernatural Elements, girl!Mark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-21 23:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roaroftheninth/pseuds/roaroftheninth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He turned into a girl,” Dustin bursts out, unable to contain himself any longer.</p><p>There's a beat. Then Eduardo laughs. “All right?”</p><p>“No, he – We mean, he actually turned into a woman,” Chris says. “Dustin isn’t messing with you.”</p><p>“For once,” Chris and Dustin say at the same time.</p><p>Or: Mark wakes up female for no particular reason that anyone can discern, learns a few life lessons, and figures out what he actually wants from Eduardo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girls Are Not Meant to Fight Dirty (Never Look a Day Past Thirty)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been on hold for ages, but the recent tidal wave of enthusiasm in the One Direction fandom for Zayn Malik in drag in their new music video prompted me to come back to it. 
> 
> I wrote this story based on a prompt I read ages ago that was basically, "Mark swaps genders and proceeds to give no fucks". I also wrote it because the movie version of Mark didn't grasp at all why Facemash was such an ugly thing to have done, and I wanted him to get his comeuppance (in a fun way, and he still gets the guy at the end, because I love Mark, okay?). 
> 
> Title from 'Girls' by Marina & the Diamonds.

Mark thinks his sisters are more or less okay-looking. Like, he’s never really thought that hard about it – they’re his sisters, and they might actually be the most irritating people in the universe while simultaneously being the people who spoil him most in that same universe – but if the thought did cross his mind, then yeah, he would probably consider his sisters to be probably not the ugliest people in a given room.

 

It’s one of the reasons why the face in the mirror is less disturbing than you’d probably expect. Mark still looks like himself – he’s definitely recognizable – but his face has taken on this odd feminine quality that it certainly never had before. He could be the female version of himself. Mark reaches out, flips off the light, and flips it back on.

 

Yep. Definitely girlier than yesterday.

 

Mark considers how to feel about that for a moment before he decides to chalk it up to luck, because it doesn’t seem like he’ll have to shave.

 

It’s too early to have to worry about this, anyway. Mark doesn’t really ‘dig’ seven-thirty in the morning – he borrowed ‘dig’ from Dustin and he would probably cut his own head off if he ever slipped up and used it aloud – and he usually only gets up at this time when he has a deadline he left so late that he couldn’t even finish it last night. This happens to be a self-set deadline – this TheFacebook situation is really starting to take shape – but Mark prides himself on sticking to these things. It’s a form of discipline all its own.

 

Meandering over to the toilet, Mark drops his shorts without preamble. It’s when he reaches down that he experiences maybe the biggest what-the-actual-fuck moment of his entire life. He carefully feels around, just to make sure, looking down at his sudden lack of outward anatomy with a puzzled frown. Not that it could hide; Mark’s not hung like any kind of porn star, okay, but usually one hand is _more_ than sufficient to find his dick.

 

It’s not there.

 

His first thought is that this is exactly Dustin’s idea of a hilarious prank, if he could figure out how to pull it off without mutilating Mark for life. Mark doesn’t think he’s been mutilated, though. He’s pretty sure he would have noticed if someone had crept into his room last night and there had been some kind of Lorena Bobbitt situation. He definitely knows he had it when he went to bed, because he’s a college boy and there are just some things you do before bed (and before breakfast and before homework, seriously, might as well just get it out of your system during college because everyone expects it; if you admit to jerking off multiple times a day as a functioning adult, people think you’re a fucking weirdo, and probably sticky).

 

So sometime in the last four hours, his cock disappeared.

 

Mark sits down on the toilet to ponder this. It’s not really a huge deal, he supposes. It’s not like Mark Zuckerberg’s 100% all-beef thermometer is in high demand. There will be no trail of sobbing women when the news gets out that he’s had some kind of overnight gender swap. Come to think of it, Mark’s not sure this will really impact his life at all.

 

Might as well code.

 

When he does sit down at his computer, he wires in immediately and has a very uneventful first morning as a woman. He does have a thought at one point that he should probably stop referring to himself by the pronoun ‘he’, but dismisses it: This is probably temporary. It’s like how you don’t come down with laryngitis and start immediately learning sign language.

 

When Dustin and Chris come in later, Dustin insisting loudly that sharks could never beat dinosaurs (“Sometimes I worry about your mental health, Christopher”), neither of them really take a good look at Mark. It’s only when they’ve been sprawled on the couch for half an hour, playing video games, that Dustin looks up and begins, “Yo, Mark, I wanted to ask you about – whaaaaaaat.”

 

Chris looks up too, and they both scrutinize Mark for a long moment, heads cocked in opposite directions.

 

“You look different,” Chris says carefully at last.

 

“You look like a _girl_ ,” Dustin says, less subtle.

 

Mark shrugs. “I know.” She doesn’t look up from the screen, but she nevertheless sees Chris and Dustin exchange glances out of the corner of her eye.

 

“Is there a – particular reason for that?” Chris doesn’t seem to know how to how to actually verbalize _how the fuck did this happen._

 

Mark shakes her head slightly. “Not that I’m aware of.”

 

Dustin stares at her, disbelieving. Mark is so _chill_ about this. “Dude.”

 

“What? Oh.” Mark does look up then, briefly. “And my cock is gone.”

 

Chris makes an odd kind of choking noise that is almost entirely drowned out by Dustin’s yelp.

 

“It’s _gone_?”

 

Mark doesn’t deign that worthy of an answer.

 

“What – what are you going to do?” Dustin demands.

 

“I’m not going to _do_ anything,” Mark replies. The pace of her typing picks up, the way it does when she’s tired of being bothered and would like to be left to her own devices again.

 

“You can’t not do anything,” Dustin protests. Chris still seems to be speechless.

 

“Why not?” Mark’s eyebrows twitch. “Was I putting it to industrious use before?”

 

“I really don’t want to know, but probably not. But still, it’s your – I mean.” Dustin’s eyes are huge. He lowers his voice. “Mark, you lost _Danger the One-Eyed Ranger._ It’s okay if you want to hold a funeral. I will mourn with you. It’s kind of gay but I’m down for that.”

 

Chris snorts. He still seems to be stunned into disbelief, but he’s coming around.

 

“You also sound – suspiciously like a woman.” Chris sounds as puzzled as Mark feels. “Do you – uh. Do you think it’ll last?”

 

Mark shrugs again.

 

Dustin surges to his feet. “This has so many implications.”

 

Mark grudgingly gives in and stops typing. “Does it?”

 

“Yes. For example. You now have boobs.”

 

Mark looks down. She – well, okay, sort of, but she’s not _stacked_ or anything. She poked one of them earlier and then lost interest.

 

Dustin is staring at her. “What’s it _like_?”

 

Mark considers it. “I don’t know. I could take it or leave it.”

 

Dustin throws his hands up. “Did you at least touch them?”

 

Mark frowns. “It’s not like free twenty-four-hour access to boobs. They’re mine, ergo I’m not attracted to them.”

 

Dustin flails. “What?”

 

Mark’s not sure how Dustin could fail to see this. “Ask Chris if he’s attracted to his own dick.”

 

Dustin half-turns, but Chris facepalms before Dustin can figure out if he should ask the question.

 

“Whatever,” Dustin decides. “Secondly. Can you now tell me how girls work? Because love is a battlefield and I am dying out there.”

 

“Dustin, I’m still me,” Mark points out. “It’s still my brain. I don’t magically have insight I didn’t have before.”

 

Dustin flops back on the couch cushions. “You’re killing me, bro.”

 

Chris cuts in. “Have you told Eduardo?”

 

Dustin whoops, suddenly intrigued again. “Oh, _snap._ Wardo’s going to lose his _shit._ ”

 

Mark’s brows furrow. “Why?”

 

Chris and Dustin glance at each other, and by now it’s starting to annoy Mark, the way these two clearly have some kind of telepathy they’re not sharing with everyone else.

 

“No reason,” Dustin says innocently.

 

Chris and Dustin continue to pester Mark with questions and theories – Dustin thinks Mark has to kiss his true love in order to be changed back, while Chris suggests that maybe this is a mental thing that has to do with how stressed Mark has been because of thefacebook, neither of which make a great deal of logical sense – until Eduardo arrives fifteen minutes later.

 

“Hey, what’s going on?” Eduardo sounds like he’s not sure whether he should be concerned. “I got a text from Dustin – ”

 

“Are you serious,” Mark says darkly, and Dustin shrugs innocently.

 

“You sound different,” Eduardo says, dropping his laptop bag near the door as he approaches. “And you look different. Did something happen? Are you sick?”

 

Mark rolls her eyes. “I’m not sick.”

 

“He turned into a girl,” Dustin bursts out, unable to contain himself any longer.

 

There is a beat. Then Eduardo laughs. “All right?”

 

“No, he – We mean, he actually turned into a woman,” Chris says. “Dustin isn’t messing with you.”

 

“For once,” Chris and Dustin say at the same time.

 

Eduardo looks back and forth between them and Mark, like he still isn’t sure what he’s supposed to believe.

 

“I hate that I have to deign this conversation worthy of my input, but it’s true,” Mark says, from where she’s been ignoring everyone in front of her computer. “Get over your surprise and confusion while remaining over there, I’m trying to work.”

 

Eduardo responds to that by striding forward into Mark’s room and closing the door, shutting Chris and Dustin into the living room.

 

“Mark, if this is true, this isn’t a joke. You should go to a hospital.”

 

Mark looks up at him, irritated. If there’s one thing worse than being trapped in a dorm room while Chris and Dustin make jokes at your expense, it’s being trapped in an even smaller room while Eduardo hovers around you with an off-putting look of abject  _concern_.

 

“Being a girl isn’t a disease.”

 

“No,” Eduardo agrees, “but since you weren’t a girl yesterday, I think you have some cause for concern. Or do you think this is totally normal?”

 

Mark lifts one shoulder noncommittally. “It’ll work itself out.”

 

Eduardo throws up his hands. “How are you so –  _calm_  about this? I would be – I would be freaking  _out._ ”

 

“Well, of course you would, because your self-worth is tied up in what’s between your legs and you don’t think you would be as relevant and as powerful if you were a woman.” Mark raises an eyebrow as something occurs to her. “And they’d kick you out of the Phoenix because final clubs don’t allow female members.”

 

Eduardo stares at her, totally speechless. After a moment, he manages, “Did the creator of  _Facemash_  just give me a lecture on  _feminism_?”

 

Mark looks deeply unsettled for a moment. She chooses not to reply.

 

“Anyway, that’s not why I would be freaking out,” Eduardo says. “I would be freaking out because people don’t just change genders overnight. It’s not a normal thing that happens to people.”

 

“Maybe I started a trend.”

 

Eduardo gives her a look. “Have you even thought about how to navigate life as a girl?”

 

Mark gives him the same look right back. “I was planning on doing everything I normally do, except peeing standing up because now that has acquired a startling degree of difficulty.”

 

Eduardo frowns.

 

Mark frowns back. “Wardo. I don’t have to be freaking out about something just because you’re freaking out about something. You freak out if the dry cleaners forget to give you your complimentary pocket square. It accomplishes basically nothing and I have a lot of work to do.”

 

Eduardo doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. After a moment, he opens the door to the living room again. Chris and Dustin are still sitting on the couch, and they both turn and look when the door opens.

 

“We were thinking we should take Mark to the AEPi party on Friday,” Dustin says.

 

“Well – okay, he’s not a novelty we’re showing off,” Chris interrupts. “We were just thinking – ”

 

“He’d look super cute in a dress,” Dustin finishes, beaming.

 

Mark looks deeply rattled.

 

“He can’t go to the party,” Eduardo says immediately.

 

Dustin looks puzzled. “Why not?”

 

“Because – because people like us go to those parties,” Eduardo says helplessly.

 

“People like us?” Chris echoes.

 

“Every time there’s a cute girl in a short skirt, we’re like – I don’t know, sharks who smell blood in the water,” Eduardo points out.

 

“Speak for yourself,” Chris says.

 

“You would probably be the worst offender if you liked girls; you get laid more than any of us,” Dustin says amiably.

 

Chris looks like he’s not sure whether to laugh or be offended.

 

“And we mostly just look,” Eduardo continues. “Maybe we talk to the girl if she looks interested. But a lot of guys go a lot further. Last year there was that girl who got roofied.”

 

Mark snorts. “No one’s going to roofie me.”

 

“You don’t know that,” Eduardo replies.

 

“This makes me a terrible person but I’d kind of love it if that happened and when they woke up the next morning, Mark was back to being a dude,” Dustin says.

 

“One in three American women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes,” Chris puts in, and that shuts everyone up.

 

“One in  _three_?” Eduardo asks after a moment, sounding shaken.

 

“Is that true?” Dustin looks chastised. “Where did you hear that?”

 

“We have a women’s centre on campus that holds events in conjunction with the GSA like, all the time,” Chris says. “I never invite you guys because I don’t think you’d be into it.”

 

All of them are silent for a long moment.

 

“I’m not wearing a dress,” Mark says at last, point blank.

 

Nobody disputes it.

 

By the time Mark has to leave for her night class, it’s already dark out and Eduardo keeps glancing anxiously out the window. When Mark packs up her bag and gets ready to leave, Eduardo gets up too.

 

“I’ll walk you to your class,” he says.

 

Mark blinks. “Do you need to go to the library?”

 

“No.”

 

Mark tries to think of where else her class could possibly be on the way to. Then it dawns on her.

 

“Are you walking me to my class because I’m a girl?”

 

Eduardo looks defensive. “It’s after dark.”

 

Mark frowns. “I’ll be fine.”

 

“Just – humour me,” Eduardo says, and Mark rolls her eyes but doesn’t protest further.

 

As she stuffs her feet into her shoes, she says, “If you hold the door for me, I’m probably going to hurt your feelings.”

 

Eduardo stares at her. “I always hold the door for you.”

 

Mark cocks her head, surprised. “Why?”

 

“Because it’s – basic courtesy?” Eduardo doesn’t have to point out that Mark never holds the door for anyone, unless it’s an absent-minded thing. He doesn’t mind, though. Eduardo knows he was simply raised one way and Mark was raised another.

 

Mark shakes her head slightly and goes out. Eduardo’s not sure if Mark’s trying to prove a point or not, but she reaches a hand back to prop the door open for a few seconds longer each time they pass through one and Eduardo is walking in her wake. Eduardo forces himself not to smile.

 

“Do you think people will notice that you look different?” Eduardo asks, as they walk. Well, Mark practically jogs and Eduardo, the taller of the two, can stride along next to her without looking like some idiot jogging in a suit.

 

Mark shakes her head. “This isn’t one of those classes in which I point out to everyone else how far behind me they are. It’s just a core class.”

 

Eduardo nods. “Boring?”

 

Mark frowns. “I think I need a sports bra.”

 

Eduardo almost chokes at the non-sequitur.

 

\--

 

The next week passes in much the same way. Chris and Dustin continue to propose theories as to what happened and why and how long it will last, but they keep reaching dead ends. Eduardo is determined to protect Mark from the world, and Mark – is Mark. Honestly, he doesn’t really change much. He does participate less in class, because his voice is definitely higher than it was before, and he walks around with his hood up and his head down to avoid stares and awkward encounters, but life isn’t much different. He still eats and sleeps and studies and codes. Unsurprisingly, he can do all of these things with a vagina **.**

 

It does have its perks. The Winklevosses seem at a loss when he encounters them by chance in the Quad, and they proceed to leave him alone for a week. Unbeknownst to him, Cameron impresses upon his twin and Divya how much creepier it looks if they send vaguely threatening message to a  _girl_  every second day. It’s the first time the two of them get the  _gentlemen of Harvard_  speech but it won’t be the last.

 

On Thursday, Eduardo asks Mark if he might be interested in attending a party at the Phoenix. Mark declines because he immediately knows that Eduardo’s only asking him because of the whole being-a-woman thing. Eduardo spends the next day and a half impressing upon him that there will be free booze and they don’t even have to dance or anything stupid. Finally, Mark accepts, simply because he can more appropriately make jabs at the Phoenix if he’s been inside their clubhouse and it seems preposterous to say no to free alcohol.

 

When Eduardo arrives at half past eight on Saturday night to pick him up, though, Chris is studying for a mid-term with his notes spread all over the coffee table and the floor while Dustin sits nearby, highlighting what looks suspiciously like  _everything_  in a macroeconomic theory textbook – but Mark is nowhere to be found.

 

When Eduardo inquires, Chris looks up, startled, like Eduardo had dragged him out of eighteenth century France or whatever it is he’s studying. “I think he’s in the bathroom.”

 

Eduardo approaches the bathroom door and raps lightly on it with his knuckles. “Mark?”

 

There’s a silence. Then: “I can’t go anywhere.”

 

Eduardo cocks an eyebrow. “Is something wrong?”

 

Another silence. “Maybe. Yes. I don’t know.”

 

“Do you want to tell me what it is in case I can help?”

 

“No.” Mark is very certain about that.

 

By now, Chris and Dustin are also listening.

 

“Is it a girl thing?” Dustin asks.

 

“I don’t know,” Mark replies, which essentially guarantees that it is, in fact, a girl thing.

 

“Help us help you,” Chris says patiently.

 

Finally, the door opens, just a crack. “I didn’t know you could bleed this much without – I don’t know, passing out. Or dying.”

 

Something dawns on Chris’ face, but Eduardo looks concerned and Dustin looks shocked and appalled.

 

“Do you need help?” Eduardo asks, at the same time as Dustin says, “You’re  _bleeding_? From where?”

 

“Guess,” Mark says succinctly.

 

“Bro, I am calling 9-1-1 because I think both your kidneys just failed,” Dustin declares.

 

“Okay, relax,” Chris says, because Eduardo looks like he’s about to have a coronary and Dustin is legitimately reaching for his phone. “Is this actually happening? The only one of us who has never been within striking distance of a vagina is the only one who knows what’s going on here?”

 

“To be fair, I’ve never been within striking distance of one either,” Dustin points out.

 

“Yeah, but not for lack of trying.” Chris looks around at them all and facepalms. “Good God. Okay. It’s – you’re going to be okay, Mark. Jesus, don’t you have sisters?”

 

“Yes,” Mark replies flatly, “and oddly enough we’ve never had a conversation about  _vaginal bleeding_.”

 

“Is that a thing that happens?” Dustin asks, almost in a whisper, his eyes huge.

 

Chris, to his everlasting credit, decides to be helpful instead of laughing himself into a coma. He explains the situation as best he can in as few words as possible and directs Eduardo to the c-store to buy the appropriate products to help Mark out. Eduardo doesn’t even protest; he leaves so fast, he almost stumbles on the way out.

 

“I would’ve said ‘why me’,” Dustin says.

 

“I’m not sure why it’s embarrassing,” Chris replies. “The clerk obviously knows you’re not buying them for yourself.”

 

“Yeah, but watch this,” Dustin tells him, and when Eduardo returns a few minutes later, Chris sees what he means: Eduardo drops an armload of stuff onto the couch.

 

“I wasn’t sure what to get,” he says anxiously.

 

Dustin grins. “See?”

 

Chris sighs and slides over so that he can look through Eduardo’s purchases. He discards four different kinds of tampons (“I’m pretty sure it would just be unkind to hand him these”), a box of panty-liners (“Like bringing a knife to a gunfight”), and a Diva Cup (“… This is beyond even me”). He settles on a box of standard pads and hands them to Eduardo.

 

Eduardo looks terrified. “What do I do with these?”

 

Chris bites back a smile. “You don’t have to administer first aid, Eduardo. Just pass them to him and tell him to follow the instructions in the box.”

 

Eduardo does so, and Mark snatches them through the crack and slams the door shut. When she emerges nearly ten minutes later, she looks so uncomfortable that Chris wants to give her a hug. Mark flushes when she sees them all watching her and abruptly sits down in the nearest chair like they bear no interest to her whatsoever.

 

“So what now?” Dustin asks, sounding like he’s a little bit in awe. “Does he just stay there and wait for it to stop?”

 

“Not unless he wants to sit there for, like, five days,” Chris says.

 

“Five  _days_?” Mark demands.

 

Chris looks sympathetic. “That’s what I hear.”

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Mark decides.

 

“What do girls do?” Eduardo asks, a little anxiously.

 

“They don’t lay in bed for five days,” Chris says, hard-pressed not to laugh. “I think you’re just supposed to suck it up.”

 

Dustin is staring at him, askance, but now that the big emergency is over, Chris really does want to go back to his studying. He pushes the array of feminine products to the far end of the couch and searches for the notes he just had in his hand not twenty minutes ago. Dustin looks like he has about eighteen hundred more questions, so Mark quickly retreats into her room. To her surprise, Eduardo follows.

 

“I’m not going to that party,” Mark says quickly, in case Eduardo has any illusions about that.

 

“I know.”

 

Mark raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you going?”

 

Eduardo looks surprised that Mark had to ask. “No. I’m staying here with you.”

 

Mark glances left and right, like this answer makes no sense to her. “You’re wearing a tie.”

 

“I frequently wear ties,” Eduardo points out, amused. “And look…” He loosens the knot. “I can take it off.”

 

Mark frowns, but she can’t think of any other objections so she simply sits on the bed.

 

“You can code, if you want,” Eduardo tells her. “I don’t mind sitting and reading or something.”

 

Mark thinks about it. “I want to watch a movie,” she says. “And I want to code at the same time.”

 

They end up with the Godfather, because it’s a favourite of Eduardo’s and Mark doesn’t really have a strong preference. Eduardo sort of sets it up so that he spends most of the movie innocently shoulder to shoulder with Mark, not quite leaning on her. It’s why he notices, when they get close to the end, that Mark is sort of shuddering. Eduardo looks over and is totally astonished to see that Mark is  _crying._

 

“Are you – okay?” He asks, not sure if he should draw attention to it.

 

Mark, hilariously, looks utterly bewildered more than sad. “I think I’m  _leaking._ ” She says it like it might be more disgusting than the surprise bleeding session she’s already had today.

 

“Yeah, they call that crying,” Eduardo says, with just a hint of laughter.

 

“But I’m not _sad._ ”

 

“You’re not even a _little_ sad?” Eduardo nudges her. “Don Corleone died. It’s a sad day.”

 

Mark wipes her palm across her face, under her eyes. “Jesus. _Hormones._ ”

 

Eduardo grins.

 

“Why did you even stay here?” Mark demands, annoyed.

 

“To irritate you beyond reason,” Eduardo replies cheerfully. “Is it working?”

 

Mark makes a face at him, but the effect is spoiled by how red-rimmed her eyes are. At least she’s no longer crying. Eduardo’s pretty sure he felt the world cracking open when that happened. And this might be the first time ever that Mark has allowed Eduardo to cheer her up rather than deflecting, deflecting, deflecting.

 

_“I need you.”_

_“I’m here.”_

_“No. I need the algorithm you use to rank chess players.”_

_“Are you okay?”_

_“We’re ranking girls.”_

 

This is better, Eduardo thinks. It’s healthier for Mark, and frankly, Eduardo’s enough of a basketcase over his grades and his father and getting into the Phoenix that it feels good, for once, not having to do a lot of guesswork where Mark is concerned.

 

“I would have looked fairly terrible in a dress anyway,” Mark says, and Eduardo is surprised to discover that Mark sounds the very tiniest bit – contrite? For causing Eduardo to miss the party, perhaps? Eduardo decides that this must be a case of him reading things into other things that don’t really make sense.

 

“Don’t be silly,” Eduardo answers.

 

“Chris and Dustin had an entire conversation about the acceptability of pantsuits. I think Chris was in favour because he has a secret hard-on for Hillary Clinton.”

 

Eduardo tilts his head. “Yeah. Accurate.”

 

“Regardless, I can’t pull off a suit to save my life, either,” Mark concludes.

 

“You look fine in a suit, Mark,” Eduardo insists.

 

“Some of us are cut out to wear suits,” Mark says. For some reason, she glances briefly away when she says, “You, for instance.”

 

Eduardo smiles. “Yeah?”

 

Mark gives a quick nod, just a jerk of her head, really, and doesn’t say anything else about it. But Eduardo carries that around with him for awhile.

 

\--

 

Erica catches up with Eduardo in the hall the following Monday. She’s coming from a class that’s less boring than it sounds called American Intellectual Traditions, and Eduardo is coming from a law class about the Constitution that he threw into his schedule as an elective to make up a shortfall. As they cross paths, she changes direction and falls into step beside him.

 

“What the fuck is Mark doing?”

 

Eduardo barely had more than a few polite conversations with Erica over the period of her courtship with Mark, so he’s not sure when this apparent familiarity happened. “What do you mean?”

 

“I  _mean_ , why is he walking around campus as a  _woman_?”

 

Eduardo supposes he shouldn’t be surprised that news travels fast. “I – we don’t actually know,” he says. “He’s not doing it to be – you know. Whatever you think he’s being.”

 

“I guess I’m just wondering whether we can include his photo in Facemash 2.0.”

 

Eduardo stares at her, taken aback, but Erica doesn’t look apologetic.

 

“He was really upset when he made Facemash,” Eduardo begins, but Erica isn’t having it.

 

“Don’t you make excuses for him,” she says, through gritted teeth. “Don’t you dare, Eduardo. You can tell him, from me, that I think it’s  _great_  he’s finding out how the other half lives. But while he’s playacting, the rest of us have to go around being judged on our appearance instead of by our intelligence, our competence, or our skills, for the rest of our lives. Being a woman isn’t a  _college experiment._ ”

 

She walks away, and Eduardo is speechless.

 

\--

 

Chris has just left the dorm room, bookbag over his shoulder, when the door opens and closes behind him. He glances back and sees Mark hurrying toward him, so Chris obligingly halts and waits for her to catch up.

 

“I want you take me to a women’s centre meeting,” Mark says, without preamble, as they begin to walk.

 

“What?” Chris’ eyebrows twitch. “Why?”

 

“Because. There has been a noticeable uptick in angry e-mails and hallway confrontations with girls since I started being one because of the Facemash thing. And I want to explain what I actually meant when I made Facemash. Also I think it’s unfair that I can’t get into a final club if I want to. I think we should fight that.”

 

Chris feels like he spends ninety per cent of his time in Mark’s presence facepalming. “I thought you didn’t care about final clubs now because you’ve got thefacebook.”

 

Mark offers a one-shouldered shrug, like this should be obvious: “It’s the principle.”

 

“Well, I can tell you right now, nobody there wants to hear about how you didn’t mean for Facemash to be a sexist thing, because it was, and they don’t want to hear you reiterate your apology-that-wasn’t by saying you’re sorry they were offended.” Chris isn’t going to sugar-coat this for Mark.

 

“I  _am_  sorry they were offended,” Mark says.

 

They step outside, and it’s twilight already. Chris is going to have to hurry if he wants to make his seven o’clock class. “Mark, I’m not going to be your – feminist guru, or whatever you’re looking for.”

 

“I’m not a feminist,” Mark says at once.

 

“Well – yeah, I know.” Chris shakes his head. He has picked up his pace, but Mark refuses to be shaken off. “My point is that when you offend a group of people, you don’t get to go and explain to them why they’re stupid for being offended. You’re the one who made the mistake. Own that.”

 

Mark frowns, but as she does so, a group of guys that Dustin would probably dub ‘dude-bros’ who are walking maybe thirty feet to their left in the opposite direction begin yelling obscenities.

 

“Are you serious,” Chris mutters.

 

“Intellectually I could chew up those people and spit them out,” Mark says, stopping.

 

“Don’t.” Chris grabs her arm and pulls her along.

 

“One of them called me a _slut_. That’s patently untrue – ”

 

Chris drags Mark around a corner. “The whole point is to get your attention and rile you up. If you just keep walking, you win.”

 

“I don’t think they’d beat us up. Hitting me is basically hitting a girl, and hitting you is a hate crime.”

 

Chris rolls his eyes heavenward for patience. “I’m going to class, Mark. Go home. Figure out – whatever it is you need to figure out.”

 

Chris leaves Mark there, and goes inside the building.

 

\--

 

“Witch,” Dustin declares.

 

“Doubtful,” Mark replies.

 

“No, hear me out.” Dustin is all facial expressions and waving arms. “I think there’s a witch on campus. Who turned you into a girl so you’d find out why you’re a terrible person for creating Facemash.”

 

“Mark’s not a terrible person,” Eduardo objects.

 

“Not the point,” Dustin insists. “Mark has to, you know, walk a mile in some lady moccasins before he can go back to being himself.”

 

Mark considers this. “So what’s my objective?”

 

Eduardo looks puzzled, but Dustin gets it. “You mean, what do you have to do before you can be turned back?”

 

“Okay, we’re not seriously contemplating this, are we?” Eduardo interrupts. “There’s no  _witch._  That’s impossible.”

 

“So is turning into a girl overnight,” Dustin replies amiably, “and yet hallelujah, we have our miracle.”

 

“What’s my objective?” Mark repeats.

 

Dustin shrugs. “I don’t know, I’m not an expert in gender-switching sorcery. But you probably have to have some kind of eureka moment. That’s how these things work in all the movies.”

 

“I don’t know what to have a eureka moment about,” Mark says.

 

Dustin rolls his eyes. “Duh. You won’t know until you have it.”

 

Mark considers this for a long moment. Then she abruptly gets up.

 

Eduardo looks surprised. “Where are you going?”

 

“To look for my eureka moment,” Mark replies.

 

\--

 

And she does. Mark doesn’t know if you can actually look for what’s supposed to be a spontaneous moment of life-changing realization, but she’s definitely going to try. She has a vague idea of what her first attempt should be, and it finalizes itself into a concrete plan when she reaches the BU residences.

 

Erica doesn’t happen to be home, but her roommate is, and she gives Mark a filthy look when she tells her that she can wait outside. Mark shrugs and does so, leaning against the wall outside of Erica’s apartment for almost forty-five minutes before she arrives, looking irritated.

 

“Hi,” Mark says, pushing away from the wall. “I’ve been waiting.”

 

“I know,” Erica replies. “Sam texted me.”

 

“Oh.” Mark realizes she’s sort of hunching forward, hands shoved into her pockets, and she tries to look more relaxed. “Can we talk?”

 

Erica frowns. “I’d really rather we didn’t. I don’t have anything else to say to you.”

 

“What if I have something to say to you?”

 

Erica expels a breath. “Unless it’s ‘I’m sorry I was a dickhead’, I don’t think – ”

 

Mark interrupts her. “It is.”

 

“What?”

 

“It is.” Mark’s eyes skitter away and back. “That’s what I came to say. I’m sorry I was a… dickhead.”

 

Erica blinks. “Well, okay.”

 

“I shouldn’t have… written those things on my blog.”

 

Erica looks at her like she’s being patronizingly obvious. “No, you shouldn’t have.”

 

“I was upset.”

 

“So was I,” Erica says calmly. “Did I _blog_ offensive Jewish jokes and announce on the internet how small your cock is?”

 

Mark opens her mouth to say something that would probably start with, _To be fair…_ but the look on Erica’s face, and the nudge in the back of her mind that she’s working on her eureka moment, shuts her up. “You did not.”

 

“No,” Erica agrees. “I didn’t. I will tell you one thing: Everything you wrote on that blog reinforced for me why I broke up with you. I wasn’t sad that I did it.”

 

Mark’s mouth twists, like she’s reached out and slapped her, but she doesn’t say anything. She’s learning, maybe.

 

Erica finds she has to look past her. “Thank you for apologizing. It was big of you and I didn’t expect it. Now please leave.”

 

Mark hesitates. “Can I ask you something? Please.”

 

Erica grits her teeth. “One thing, Mark.”

 

And that’s how, three nights later, Mark is at her first women’s centre meeting. Erica is sitting next to her, arms folded, and her civility with Mark is hanging by a string, but she’s here, and she brought Mark. Surprisingly, she seemed to think it was a good idea that Mark come to this. She had gotten a scary look on her face and told her that she, Erica, in fact, believed it was a _great_ idea for Mark to go to a women’s centre meeting. Mark reflected afterward that she should have taken that as some kind of terrible warning.

 

It’s not that the meeting is the worst thing ever. They have muffins and coffee, and except for a girl named Eileen who talks for twenty minutes about how sexist the male porters are in residence, they get through the agenda fairly quickly.

 

And then Erica says, “I’d like to bring up new business.”

 

All eyes turn toward them, and Mark finds herself intensely uncomfortable.

 

“This is Mark Zuckerberg,” Erica says, and almost everyone looks taken aback; two or three of them immediately commence trying to murder her with their eyes. “I know we’ve had some issues with him – _her_ before, but she’s self-identifying as a woman now and she wants a second chance.”

 

Well, that’s not entirely true, Mark thinks; but she supposes that they’re all more likely to buy that than ‘A witch cursed me and I need to find my eureka moment’.

 

“I thought your apology for Facemash was fairly terrible,” one girl says at once.

 

“I did apologize, though,” Mark replies, looking put-upon.

 

“After you knew you’d be called in front of the ad board,” someone else says.

 

“As it happens, I think Mark can help us,” Erica says, overriding whatever Mark is about to say. “Our website hasn’t been updated since last fall. It could use an overhaul.”

 

Mark frowns. “I’m building my own website right now.”

 

“Great, so you can work on ours at the same time,” Erica says brightly.

 

Mark frowns, but as she finds herself the focal point of two dozen glares, she doesn’t argue. She can probably code from scratch a better website than their existing one in a day or less.

 

“Great,” Erica says, when Mark doesn’t reply. “I’m glad that’s settled.”

 

\--

 

The longer Mark spends as a girl, the more she notices how it’s the little things that are different. She get the usual looks people get when they suddenly decide mid-way through their sophomore year of college to switch genders, of course, but it’s more than that; she can’t put her finger on it, but people _treat_ her differently.

 

The situation comes to a head maybe two weeks in, when Mark is unwillingly at a discussion panel that was mandatory for one of her classes. Every time Mark speaks, one of the guys at the table, Sidney, overrides her: _What you don’t understand is… On the other hand… You’re not seeing the big picture…_

 

Mark reaches a boiling point when the guy patronizingly drops the word ‘sweetheart’.

 

At that moment, it becomes Mark’s duty to verbally take Sidney apart.

 

She’s reaching the end of her diatribe when Sidney, who has been sitting, mouth-agape, tries to get a word in edgewise.

 

“I’m not sure who you think you are – ”

 

Mark leans forward and doesn't even skip a beat or take a breath, just leads right into: “I’m Mark Zuckerberg. Who the fuck are you?”

 

There is a moment of shocked silence. And then one of the girls in the room begins to applaud.

 

Later on, on Mark’s way home, Erica catches up with her.

 

“Hey. One of my friends just told me about what you did in class. She says she’s been dying for someone to call out that guy on his sexist bullshit.”

 

Mark shakes her head. “I didn’t call him out because he was sexist. I called him out because he was being an asshole.”

 

“Yeah, Mark; same difference.”

 

Mark lifts one shoulder. “Maybe.”

 

Erica nods. “Well, good for you. Maybe this really is you turning over a new leaf.”

 

Mark doesn’t respond, mostly because she doesn’t know what to say. She does go to the next two women’s centre meetings, though. Mostly, of course, because Erica says she has to. Mostly.

 

\--

 

Mark sits back from her computer and texts Erica.

 

_Website’s done. Go look._

 

She responds nearly half an hour later; Mark always forgets that Erica has friends and hobbies and doesn’t really text unless someone like Mark texts her first.

 

_Nice._

 

Mark frowns. That’s the kind of text Mark would send. It’s not very _satisfying_ to receive.

 

_Does it look how you wanted it to look?_

 

“Mark?”

 

Mark looks up, startled. Eduardo is in his doorway but kind of hanging back, with that weird uncertainty that he sometimes has.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Who are you texting?”

 

Mark shrugs. “No one.”

 

She’s not sure why she says that.

 

Eduardo seems to take that as permission to come further into the room. “Want to study with me at the library later?”

 

Mark shrugs. “We can study here.”

 

“True, but, we never get anything done.”

 

Mark hesitates.

 

“Unless you don’t want to,” Eduardo adds.

 

Mark wonders if Eduardo was just asking to polite. Anyway, Mark doesn’t want to lug her laptop all over god’s green acre, and she’s sick of being stared at when she goes out. “Uh, I’m good. I’ll stay.”

 

There’s a beat, and then Eduardo nods. “Oh, okay. I’ll – I guess I’ll see you later, then.”

 

When he’s gone, Mark’s eyebrows knit, and she wonders what this feeling is.

 

It takes her a long time to figure it out.

 

\--

 

“Holy shit,” Dustin says. It’s Wednesday, and they’re sitting in the dorm room, Chris sitting on the floor with his back against Dustin’s knees and Mark flopped in the armchair across from him.

 

“What?” Chris looks up from the Hillary Clinton autobiography he’s reading.

 

“Get this. Someone hacked into all of the final club databases – or at least, all the ones who keep online records. All of their member lists and contact information are gone.”

 

Chris whistles. “It’d be hard to even find those, never mind get in and delete them.”

 

“The person left a calling card,” Dustin says. “It’s a woman’s name, that’s all they’re saying.”

 

“Huh,” Chris says thoughtfully.

 

There’s a brief silence as Dustin skims the rest of the article. Mark has already lost interest, buried once again in her computer. When Eduardo arrives half an hour later, none of them really look up.

 

“Did you hear about that final club hack?” Dustin asks.

 

“Oh. Yeah.” Eduardo tugs off his jacket and lays it gently over the back of a chair.

 

“Does the Phoenix keep online records?”

 

Eduardo shakes his head, but he says, “They do keep online records. But ours weren’t touched.”

 

Dustin frowns, and Chris looks up. “They said all of the ones with electronic records.”

 

Eduardo shrugs. “Not ours.”

 

Dustin immediately looks accusingly at Mark. Mark ignores him. Eduardo doesn’t seem to notice anything is amiss.

 

“Did the Crimson publish the woman’s name?” Eduardo drops down onto the couch.

 

“They did not,” Dustin admits.

 

“Well, it’s not so much a calling card as a message,” Eduardo says. “The name the person left on every blank page was _Susan B._ ”

 

Chris looks up. “As in Susan B. Anthony?”

 

“Not sure,” Eduardo replies. “I’m just passing on what I heard.”

 

“Unless Susan B. Anthony is a zombie with mad hacks, I’m gonna say it’s probably not her,” Dustin says.

 

“No. But she was pretty famous for her women’s rights advocacy,” Chris points out. “Which the final clubs are notorious for ignoring.”

 

“What do you think, Mark?” Eduardo asks.

 

Mark doesn’t even look up. “I think any hacker with the barest eighth of my skill could pull that off and we’ll probably never know.”

 

Dustin and Chris exchange significant glances. Eduardo doesn’t notice.

 

\--

 

Erica calls after Chris and Dustin have gone to bed, sleepily nudging each other’s shoulders but too worn out from their Medal of Honour marathon to actually let it devolve into a proper play fight.

 

“I know it was you,” Erica tells Mark, the moment she picks up the phone. Mark settles herself into her computer chair, cracking open a Rockstar (Dustin had announced gravely that ‘man – or woman, sorry Mark – cannot live on Red Bull alone’).

 

“No, you don’t,” Mark replies, because she knows, obviously, what she’s talking about.

 

“Yes, I do. I’m not going to make you fix it, I just wanted you to know that you’re not as sneaky as you think you are.”

 

“That’s good, because I wouldn’t fix something just because you asked me to anyway,” Mark replies.

 

Erica sighs. “You know what else I know? I know that you left the Phoenix’s database alone.”

 

“Prove it,” Mark says, with a shrug Erica can’t see.

 

“I’m just going to keep talking and pretending that your contributions to the conversation are limited to a polite _yes, Erica_ and _of course, you’re so right_ ,” Erica informs him, and really, Mark thinks, what else is new? “So I know you left the Phoenix database alone, and I also know why, and I think you need to deal with it.”

 

“There’s nothing to deal with,” Mark tells her flatly.

 

“I don’t know why you’re bothering to lie to me, I honestly don’t care about your love life,” Erica says impatiently. “But since you’re using this – identifying as a woman thing to reorganize your life a little, you might as well go all the way.”

 

“I appreciate your input,” Mark says, in a tone of voice that says the opposite.

 

“I’m just saying.” There’s a beat. “I always knew there was something going on with you two.”

 

“Erica.” Mark doesn’t know why she needs her to stop talking; she just does.

 

“You could be happy, you know,” she points out. “You could be happy if you’d let yourself be. If you weren’t so focused on being smug and smarter than everyone else all the time.”

 

“I _am_ smarter than everyone else,” Mark says, because _obviously_.

 

“And everyone knows that, okay?” Erica sounds frustrated, but weirdly, it feels like it’s on _his_ behalf somehow. “So you don’t need to stick it in everyone’s face nine hundred times a day. People would like you a lot more.”

 

“I don’t need to be liked,” Mark says coldly.

 

“No,” Erica agrees. “But you can’t tell me you’d rather be lonely.”

 

Mark doesn’t know how to respond to that.

 

The conversation draws to a close soon after, and Mark tosses her phone onto the bed behind her and drags her fingers through her hair ( _like Eduardo does_ , her brain supplies, which makes her want to glare inwardly at those particular neurons and ask them why they’re wasting space remembering useless things like that). After a while, she doesn’t even log into her computer and start working. Without changing her clothes or brushing her teeth, she flops down face-first on her bed and buries her face in the duvet.

 

Fucking _Erica_.

 

Mark knows there was a time when she would have blogged about Erica and it wouldn’t have been kind. She wonders whether it’s some kind of statement that she doesn’t do it now.

 

\--

 

Chris and Dustin are late back from class the next day, and Mark recalls vaguely something about the two of them planning a study date in the library, far from the distraction of video games.

 

She’s got the suite to herself when she hears the main door open and close softly and rolls back her chair so she can see into the common area.

 

Eduardo’s whole face gets involved when he spots her and smiles, and Mark wonders when she started noticing the stupid crinkle at the corners of his eyes, the obnoxious flash of teeth when it’s a real smile and not just the one he does when he’s talking business.

 

“Hey,” he says, slinging his bag down by the sofa and coming around to settle his hands on either side of Mark’s doorway, sort of awkwardly hanging in the frame. “I was hoping it’d be just you here. Can I talk to you about something?”

 

Mark shrugs and gives him that little eye roll that she does when something’s so obvious that it was stupid of the other person to have asked. She rolls back in front of her computer and picks up where she left off, doing homework for once instead of something for TheFacebook. Eduardo’s accustomed to this by now, to only having half of her attention during a conversation, so he just drops down onto the bed behind her without remarking on it.

 

“So I noticed,” he begins hesitantly, and Mark thinks, _uh oh_ , but doesn’t precisely know why. “I noticed that the Phoenix’s database didn’t get wiped the other day.”

 

Mark lifts one shoulder. “Gold star?”

 

She can’t see the little, insecure half-smile that tugs at Eduardo’s mouth, but she can imagine it flawlessly.

 

“Yeah.” Eduardo shifts, slightly. “And, Chris and Dustin spent this morning sending me vague text messages that seemed to imply that you were behind the whole thing.”

 

Mark pauses in her typing. “Chris wouldn’t.”

 

“Well, admittedly, I think it was Dustin texting from Chris’ phone about eighty per cent of the time,” Eduardo allows. “The seventy-five emoticons per message gave him away. But I did get a couple of texts that were not in all caps and seemed pretty reasonable.”

 

Mark presses her lips together. “Why would I wipe the club databases?”

 

“Mark.” Eduardo sounds like he’s not sure if she’s kidding. “You didn’t get punched.”

 

Mark laughs, but it’s not funny. “You think _that’s_ why I went out of my way to make their lives difficult? Because I’m petty?”

 

“I don’t think you’re petty,” Eduardo says, which isn’t an answer.

 

Mark spins around in her desk chair and regards him with narrow eyes. He actually physically shifts back very slightly. Mark tells herself not to be proud of that. “I didn’t wipe the databases because I didn’t get punched, Wardo. That’s what TheFacebook is for, I don’t have to mess with them, they’re not worth my time. I don’t do everything for myself, you know.”

 

Eduardo blinks at her. Mark wonders, as she always does, what she’s done to give Eduardo that impression of her. Belatedly, Eduardo says, “Mark, no, I know that you don’t, that’s not what I meant.”

 

Mark watches him, all thousand-yard stare. “Maybe I did it because it’s stupid for old boys’ clubs to still exist in a day and age where women can be presidents and astronauts.”

 

Eduardo spreads his hands. “And that only occurred to you now that it’s a problem for _you._ ”

 

That shuts Mark up for a full five seconds.

 

“Like, are you going to have to get turned into an African-American and then a – a, I don’t even know, an illegal immigrant, and so on, until you learn lessons about all walks of life? Is that what’s going on here?” Eduardo seems as lost as Mark feels, but he also seems to be trying to get to a point that Mark can’t even see through the fog yet.

 

“No,” Mark snaps, but she doesn’t know, does she? What if Eduardo’s right?

 

“Maybe the point of all of this was to kind of, um. Make you think about how other people live, yeah? Not just women.”

 

Mark processes this statement for a moment. “Well, I’ve thought about it now, so why haven’t I turned back?”

 

Eduardo is silent for a moment. Then he says, “Why didn’t you wipe the Phoenix databases?”

 

Mark freezes for a moment, then lifts a belated shoulder.

 

“Mark.” Eduardo is quiet.

 

“I thought it would make you upset,” Mark snaps, tired of having to fucking _explore her feelings_ all the time lately. It’s exhausting.

 

Eduardo lets out a breath. “And you didn’t want me to be upset.”

 

Mark doesn’t bother dignifying that with an answer.

 

“With you,” Eduardo elaborates.

 

Mark awards him with a withering glare. “In general. Remember, the goal was that you wouldn’t know it was me.”

 

Eduardo gives her a tiny, cautious smile, like he’s not sure how she’s going to react. “You didn't want me to be upset, not because it would affect you, but for my own sake. So you really thought about what it must be like in another person’s life.”

 

Mark stares at him. “It’s not like I’ve _never done that._ ”

 

Eduardo just keeps smiling at her, but it’s wider now; the eye-crinkles are back. Mark wants to slap that look off his face, except that she _doesn’t._ She doesn’t want to slap him at all.

 

What in _god’s name_ is going on?

 

“You think I’ve never done that,” Mark says, incredulous.

 

“I’m just trying to help,” Eduardo objects, because he’s always so _nice_ about everything. “I didn’t mean anything bad by it, I just thought that if we were going to break the – well, whatever, the _spell_ , maybe it was something really important that you had to realize before – ”

 

"I don't want to talk about spells," Mark snaps.

 

"Mark," Eduardo protests.

 

"I don't want to talk about learning inane  _life lessons._ "

 

"Growing as a person isn't the worst thing ever, Mark, don't make this a - "

 

Mark launches herself off of her desk chair and lands with one knee on one side on his hips and the other digging into his stomach, which knocks the wind out of him.

 

“Mark – ” He begins, sounding strangled, but Mark cuts him off.

 

“What do I have to do to get you to _stop talking?_ ”

 

Eduardo blinks up at her, once, twice, and then she crashes her mouth against his. It’s not graceful, and Mark’s never kissed a guy before, and even her skills at girl-kissing were never, you know – no one was writing _ballads_ about them. But Eduardo seems okay with it, because he grips her knee and moves it from his stomach to the outside of his hip instead of just pushing her off, and the way he sort of tentatively cradles her skull after a moment, fingers in her hair and thumb brushing her jaw, doesn’t exactly scream _no help police get off may day._

 

Mark initiated the kiss, so she makes sure that she’s the one who breaks it, sitting up to look down at Eduardo with brows knitted.

 

“Mark – _what?_ ” But Eduardo sounds absurdly pleased.

 

“You stopped talking,” she points out.

 

Eduardo huffs out a surprised laugh. “Yeah. You’re right, that definitely worked. Brilliantly.”

 

Mark gives a nod of satisfaction, and then the fact that she’s _sitting on top of Eduardo_ starts to properly sink in and she rolls off at once. “Well, I’ve been referred to as a prodigy,” she says, to cover up her embarrassment.

 

Eduardo catches her elbow. “Mark. Stay, don't - you know what, if you don’t do that again, I’m – you know, I might keep talking. About selflessness and walking a mile in other peoples’ moccasins and, hey, maybe we’ll sing _Kumbayah –_ ”

 

Mark flushes. “Don’t make fun of me.”

 

Eduardo sits up slowly, his smile fading. “Mark, I would never. Not about this. I really – I've just been wanting to do that for ages. I’m sorry.”

 

“Are you sure it’s not just because I’m a girl?” Mark asks, because – like, Eduardo is a gentleman, and everything, but him and Dustin talk about girls all the time, about getting laid, and Mark just – she doesn’t know what to do with that, because deep down she’s not a girl, and she probably won’t even stay this way.

 

“Mmm, yeah, pretty sure.” Eduardo relinquishes his grip on her elbow; doesn’t hover, just stays patiently where he is. “Because by ‘ages’ I meant since way before TheFacebook, and I think at this point I’d want to kiss you if you were a three-headed mongoose, probably. I mean, seriously, Mark.”

 

Mark doesn’t turn around. But she says: “How would you even know which head to kiss?”

 

Eduardo laughs. “Now _you’re_ making fun of _me_.”

 

After another moment, Mark lets him tuck an arm around her.

 

\--

 

Mark wakes up the next morning with a post-it note stuck to his forehead. He peels it off and blinks at it, irritated.

 

 _I think you’re back! :)_ _Before you get any ideas, it was the stubble that tipped me off. See you after class. Xx_

_E._

 

Mark crumples up the note and flings it into a darkened corner of his bedroom, realizing as he shifts, without even having to reach down there, that yeah, he's got the necessary equipment back. All things considered, it doesn't impact his immediate life decisions as much as it seems like it might. Everything's just back to normal, is all. _  
_

Mark thinks about the sign off on Eduardo's message, the  _Xx_ , and thinks,  _well._

 

Maybe a bit better than normal.


End file.
